Picture This: Netanyahu's Clear Red Line Steals the 67th UNGA

In a season of international ambiguity over how to address Iran's unchecked nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu illustrated the urgency of keeping the Islamic Republic from achieving weapons capability in clear, memorable terms.

He came into today's United Nations General Assembly speech expected to call for a "clear red line" in dealing with Tehran. As cameras clicked away, he drew that line on crinkled poster board with a fat red marker.

And in this prop twist with an ACME-esqe bomb diagram, Netanyahu ensured that his drawing would be the image carried away from this year's General Assembly.

Not the speech two addresses before Netanyahu, in which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing." Not even the latest tieless, Mahdi-based rant yesterday from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

And even though the Iranian delegation was a predictable no-show, Netanyahu still took on his Iranian counterpart and his apocalyptic policy.

"Throughout our history, the Jewish people have overcome all the tyrants who have sought our destruction. It's their ideologies that have been discarded by history," Netanyahu said.

The prime minister said that today "a great battle is being waged between the modern and the medieval."

"Israel wants to see a Middle East of progress and peace. We want to see the three great religions that sprang forth from our region -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- coexist in peace and in mutual respect. Yet, the medieval forces of radical Islam whom you just saw storming the American embassies throughout the Middle East, well, they oppose this. They seek supremacy over all Muslims. They're bent on world conquest. They want to destroy Israel, Europe, America. They want to extinguish freedom," he said.

To the regime in Iran, he lumped them with al-Qaeda as those who would "drag humanity back to an age of unquestioning dogma, unrelenting conflict."

"I think the relevant question is this, it's not whether this fanaticism will be defeated, it's how many lives will be lost before it's defeated? And we've seen that happen before too," Netanyahu said. "Some 70 years ago, the world saw another fanatic ideology bent on world conquest. Now, it went down in flames, but not before it took millions of people with it. Those who oppose that fanaticism waited too long to act. In the end they triumphed, but at a horrific cost."

At stake, he stressed, is not just the future of Israel but that of the world.

"Now, it makes little difference whether these lethal weapons are in the hands of the world's most dangerous terrorist regime or the world's most dangerous terrorist organization. They're both fired by the same hatred, they're both driven by the same lust for violence," Netanyahu said.

He called the belief that Iran can be deterred a la the Soviet Union "a very dangerous assumption."

"Militant jihadists behave very differently from secular Marxists," the prime minister said. "…For the ayatollahs of Iran, mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent. It's an inducement."

"Iran's apocalyptic leaders believe that a medieval Holy Land will reappear in the wake of a devastating Holy War, thereby ensuring that their brand of radical Islam will rule the earth," he said. "Now, that's not just what they believe. That's what is actually guiding their policies and their actions."

Ahmadinejad gave a lengthy sermon about the Mahdi in his own address. "The arrival of the ultimate savior will mark a new beginning, a rebirth and a resurrection. It will be the beginning of peace, lasting security and genuine life. His arrival will be the end of oppression, immorality, poverty, discrimination and the beginning of justice, love and empathy," the Iranian leader said yesterday from the same dais.

Netanyahu noted that he's been warning about the need to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons for more than 15 years.

"I spoke about it when it was fashionable and I spoke about it when it wasn't fashionable. I speak about it now because the hour is getting late, very late," he said. "…I speak about it now because when it comes to the survival of my country it's not only my right to speak, it's my duty to speak."

Addressing the problem, he said, is "the duty of every responsible leader who wants to preserve world peace."

And the obvious, he emphasized for yet another time, is that Tehran is using diplomatic negotiations to buy time to advance its nuclear program.